Morphological Characters

When I speak of a character as “asinine” it must be remembered that the character in itself is not asinine. What is “asinine” is the usual association of this character to all characters usually found in extant Asses. Or, the occasional association of this bizarre character (for example the “bridge” pattern of lower cheek teeth) to all characters usually found in extant Asses.
I should speak of morph 1, or 2, or X, of the character - rather like a gene and its alleles.

Of course, all morphologies are not as clear-cut as described below; and of course, Asinine characters may occur in Hemiones, etc.

Fig. 1 is a tentative schematic representation of how I see different Equus extant species in relation to a few morphologic characters. The cylinder contains a pool of characters from which the species get their morphology.

Articles in this section

Limb bones morphs are represented by Lozenges: orange for hemionine, yellow for asinine, green for Burchell-like.
Obviously, it is impossible to qualify each limb bone in this way. And obviously in the same species, all bones do not belong in a single category. Schematically hemionine bones are most slender, asinine – less so, and Burchell-like – even less.

Double knot morphs are symbolized in Figure 1 by Circles.
1. Standard : blue, Fig. 2
Ectoflexids are shallow on premolars, deep on molars.
Metastylids are either rounded or pointed.
Lingual valleys are pointed, inserted between the convex faces of metaconid and metastylid, or flattened, or (...)